Increasingly, gastronomy is playing a role in people’s motivation for travel, and destinations are making food and beverages their main attraction. This study explored the growing field of gastronomic tourism, a type of niche tourism, through the theoretical framework of destination branding theory. Using a qualitative case study research design, this research examined the branding of the emergent region of Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada as a gastronomic niche tourism destination from the perspective of tourism industry players. Findings indicated that the region turned to gastronomic tourism due to its agricultural history and need for economic development. It was also found that tourism industry players utilized the processes of brand identity, product development, collaboration, support and communication to brand the region. This study contributes scholarly and practical knowledge to the areas of tourism and branding, by providing insight into the development, management and promotion of destination brands.

Czech Tourist Authority, CzechTourism, decided in 2011 to start a longterm process of destination brand rebranding.The aim of this thesis is to evaluate and analyze the effectiveness of the activities carried out so far in all steps.The thesis is divided into several parts, the first part concentrates on brand and image of the country, the second part is focused on corporate identity, the content of the third chapter is a theory about rebranding. Practical part contains a sum of activities and events throughout the history of the country affected the brand as well as the reasons for the rebranding and problem areas. In conclusion various steps of CzechTourism and designs of visual identity are evaluated and analyzed and a few next steps are recommended.

This study provides an integrated approach to understanding the relationship between destination branding and tourist behavior, and attempts to extend the theoretical and empirical evidence about the structural relationships among the following constructs: destination image, perceived quality, destination awareness (elements of destination branding), tourist satisfaction, and tourist loyalty (elements of tourist behavior) in the leisure tourism market. This study develops and empirically tests a destination branding model and its relevant components from the perspectives of tourists, so that it will help destination marketers to build more competitive tourism destinations. The destination brand model is based on relationship marketing theory, signaling theory, and brand equity theory. The model proposed four major hypotheses: 1) destination branding has a direct positive influence on tourist loyalty; 2) destination branding has an indirect positive influence on tourist loyalty through tourist satisfaction; 3) tourist satisfaction has a positive influence on tourist loyalty; and 4) the relationship between destination branding and tourist satisfaction is moderated by trip types. A sample population consisting of residents of Virginia was surveyed. A stratified sampling method and a random sampling method were used to select the sample. A total of 304 usable questionnaires out of 2,000 questionnaires were collected. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test hypotheses in this study. The results revealed that: 1) cognitive destination image and destination familiarity had a direct influence on tourist loyalty as well as an indirect influence on tourist loyalty through tourist satisfaction; 2) affective destination image had only an indirect impact on tourist loyalty through tourist satisfaction; 3) tourist satisfaction had a significant relationship with tourist loyalty; and 4) cognitive destination image, affective destination image, and destination recognition were moderated by trip types. This study can initiate the development of theoretical foundations for destination branding. Also, the implications of these findings can help destination managers and marketers build competitive strategies for destination branding in order to ensure long-term relationships between tourists and their destinations. / Ph. D.

Yes / Residents are pivotal in the competitiveness of tourism destinations. Yet, their role as place-brand ambassadors needs better understanding, particularly in relation to social media, which directly link visitors to residents through user-generated-content (UGC). This paper explores residents’ roles as place-brand ambassadors on Twitter, using the case of Onomichi (Japan), where decreasing population meets economic dependence on tourism. From a content analysis of residents’ tweets, four distinct roles are identified, and corresponding types of content are mapped on a two-dimensional continuum based on direct vs. indirect word-of-mouth and the level of sentiment. Authors discuss implications for Destination Management Organizations (DMOs). Findings highlight the increasingly shifting role of residents towards being primary sources of place-marketing, especially due to social media, and as active proponents (rather than passive targets) of place-branding in the digital age. Such organic place-marketing may be the key to sustaining tourism in the face of rising anti-tourist sentiments worldwide.

Questa tesi empirica si concentra sul ruolo svolto dal food marketing (sezione uno) e dal destination branding (sezione due) nel promuovere lo sviluppo di una regione . La tesi è strutturata come raccolta di 4 articoli. La prima sezione si basa su due ricerche empiriche inerenti il caso della Fontina, un tipico formaggio italiano. L'obiettivo è capire che tipo di valore può essere generato collegando un alimento tipico alla regione di origine / produttore / certificazione. L'analisi approfondisce e supporta studi precedenti sull’ importanza della certificazione DOP e contribuisce individuando un legame tra le preferenze dei consumatori per i prodotti DOP e le differenze territoriali. La seconda sezione si concentra sul tema della collaborazione nelle destinazioni turistiche, approfondendo il ruolo della fiducia nel rapporto tra benefici (economici e relazionali) realizzabili attraverso service bundling e l'orientamento degli albergatori al networking. Sono stati intervistati 164 albergatori valdostani. I risultati evidenziano che la fiducia media il rapporto tra benefici relazionali e orientamento al networking. Un ulteriore risultato interessante è l'effetto mediazione svolto dell’ innovatività degli albergatori nel rapporto tra benefici economici e orientamento al networking. Lo studio fornisce una segmentazione del settore dell'ospitalità in base all'orientamento al networking degli operatori. / This empirical thesis focuses on the role played by typical food marketing (section one) and destination branding (section two) in enhancing the development of a region. The thesis is structured as the collection of 4 papers. The first section is based on two empirical surveys on the case of Fontina, a typical Italian cheese. The aim is to understand which kind of value can be generated by linking a typical food to the region of origin/ producer/ certification. The analysis supports and builds on previous studies on the importance of PDO certification. Importantly, it contributes by eliciting consumers’ preferences for PDO according to territorial differences. The second section focuses on the topic of collaboration in tourism destinations. This research investigates the role of trust in the relationship between benefits (economic and relational) achievable through service bundling and hoteliers’ orientation to networking. 164 hoteliers located in Aosta Valley region in Italy were interviewed. Outcomes highlight that trust mediates the relationship between relational benefits and networking orientation. Another interesting result is the mediation effect of hoteliers’ innovativeness on the relationship between economic benefits and networking orientation. The study provides a segmentation of the hospitality industry according to operators’ networking orientation.

Tourism destinations all over the world increasingly embrace marketing and branding practices traditionally utilized by businesses. However, the literature on customer-based brand equity modelling and measurement for tourism destinations lacks the conceptual understanding of the complex relationships between tourists and the destination brand. Therefore, the thesis at hand addresses the existing gap in tourism literature and aims at contributing to the development of the customer-based brand equity concept in a tourism destination setting (CBDBE) by taking into account the value-co-creation approach. The components of the proposed model consist of the customers’ evaluation of the destination promise in terms of transforming functional, intangible and social destination resources into tourists’ value-in-use. Furthermore, the positive relationship between visitors’ perception of the destination and value-for-money discloses the input of tourists’ own resources into the process of value-co-creation. Moreover, destination brand awareness affects the evaluation of the destination promise, which, in turn, determines tourists’ behavioural intentions towards the destination. By implementing web-based customer surveys and using a linear structural equation modelling approach, the proposed model is empirically validated for the leading Swedish mountain destination Åre. First, the model is repeatedly tested with data regarding the winter seasons 2009/10 and 2012/13.  Second, the proposed CBDBE model has been operationalized and tested also for the summer season. Findings from face-to-face interviews conducted in Åre during summer 2012 uncovered the relationships between destination resources offered in Åre, tourists’ own resources and destination value-in-use and, thus, served as the empirical fundament for the development of a destination-specific scale to measure value-in-use. Subsequently, the proposed CBDBE model has been successfully tested with web-based survey data collected after the summer season 2012, both for the total sample and separately for the main a priori tourist segments, including hiking, mountain biking and village tourists. Results show the significant contribution of destination value-in-use defined as perceived benefits from a destination stay, which, in turn, strongly affect customers’ destination loyalty. In contrast, the relationship between value-for-money and destination loyalty is less strong and even non-significant for the two customer segments hiking and mountain biking tourists. Importantly, as part of the CBDBE model operationalization, the thesis highlights the need to better understand destination-specific consumption patterns across various tourism segments by destination managers. Therefore, results demonstrate that by monitoring unique destination and tourist-specific experience dimensions, destination management can influence and better manage both the value-in-use for customers and customer loyalty. Thus, the proposed CBDBE model provides destination managers with a tool, which enables evaluation and upgrade of destination marketing strategy and, finally, assist in discovering promising innovation potentials for highly experiential tourism products. / Customer-based innovations in tourism / Engineering th Knowledge Destination through Customer-based Competence Development

Destinationer attraherar konsumenter och besökare på olika sätt. En strategi för att skapa unicitet och stå ut i mängden av destinationer en resenär har att välja mellan är att skapa ett destinationsvarumärke. Detta varumärke hjälper destinationen i dess arbete att skapa en relation till tidigare och nya besökare. Likväl som att varumärket är viktigt för lokala aktörer genom att det skapar en känsla av platsen och ökar värdet av lokala produkter. Men för att nå ut till gästen behöver destinationen genomföra något som kallas branding, vilket innebär att marknadsföra vad destinationen har att erbjuda i form av aktiviteter och upplevelser. En viktig faktor är att skapa en känsla och koppling mellan besökaren och destinationen. För att följa en destinations utveckling samt trender i världen behövs ibland en rebranding genomföras för platser, destinationer och regioner. Detta för att behålla eller skapa en konkurrenskraft mot konkurrerande destinationer. Det övergripande syftet med denna studie är att öka kunskapen om hur de lokala intressenterna spelar roll i framgången för ett nytt destinationsvarumärke. Ett annat syfte är att undersöka vad som uppstår för besöksnäringen när en destination väljer att byta samt förlänga dess destinationsvarumärke. För att uppnå syftet ska en fallstudie genomföras som undersöker hur besöksnäringen använder sig av Östersunds destinationsvarumärke och deras känsla kring rebrandingen som skett. Studien syftar också på att skapa en förståelse för hur besöksnäringen ställer sig mot detta och vad deras uppfattningar är gällande bytet. Samt vad besöksnäringen anser om det nya destinationsvarumärket och hur de har varit delaktiga i framtagandet. Genom ett strategiskt urval har intervjuer med besöksnäring och människor involverade i framtagandet av det nya destinationsvarumärket genomförts. Resultatet tyder på att besöksnäring och lokalbefolkning spelar en viktig roll i framgångarna för ett destinationsvarumärke. / <p>2020-06-08</p>

Since the first national park Yellowstone was established, people from across the world have come to visit the natural wonders that our national parks have to offer. While much empirical research has been conducted concerning the marketing and branding strategies of non-profit organizations, government agencies, and tourism destinations; not much has been conducted on national parks. This research seeks to understand how our national parks have marketed and branded themselves over time and determine how marketing and branding will play a role in the development and conservation of the parks. This research was conducted utilizing in- depth methods such as an autoethnographic reflection and content analysis. Throughout the content analysis, themes arose amongst the strategies of the national parks over time such as “Romanticism,” “Exploration,” “Nature Preservation,” and many more discussed throughout this research. Each of these unique themes represents what was culturally important.

The concern for environmental sustainability is constantly growing within tourist destinations. Environmental concern is leading to increased consumer awareness of green sustainable destinations. The growing interest in sustainability-based practices contributes to companies using green marketing communication to attract green conscious consumers. The study contributes to understanding how green marketing communication and green practices can create misleading perceptions and affect the consumer experience of a surf destination, before versus after arriving in Bali, Indonesia. The study was conducted using an abductive and qualitative research approach. The data was collected from ten semi-structured interviews with visitors at a surf camp in Canggu, Bali. Observations of communication material were also conducted to complete the interviews. The results indicated that there was a difference between the perceived destination image compared to what the consumers experienced on site. The company misled their consumers through claims about their green efforts in their marketing communication. These occurrences can be seen as greenwashing, since the surf camp insists to be more ecologically sustainable than they actually are.

Sport events are known to be strategically utilized to ‘sell’ the identity of its host destination. This since projections of and from the sport event can indirectly reflect elements symbolizing the destination, generating an image transfer process. And oppositely, how visitors project their lived experiences of a sport event on social media, may also have an impact on the destination image. But in research, the issue of branding outcomes from sport events has predominantly been studied from a managerial perspective and was mainly conducted 15 years ago. Since then, digital revolutions have entered the global arena and offered innovative ways to share and create the stories of our lives; causing a change in our perspectives of how we interpret experiences of the world. In the context of sport tourism, existing knowledge on the field would benefit to gain new insights following these new circumstances. And given these circumstances, there is not only a theoretical need but also an implicational need to understand visitors’ subjective experiences when attending a hallmark event and how such are being projected to the world through social media. Answers may provide new, strategical opportunities for practitioners to coordinate their branding activities to align with values that visitors places into their experiences of sport events – which in long-term lead to favorable, shared destination images. This study provides a glimpse of this perspective, by approaching a contemporary case study of the hallmark sport event Svenska Skidspelen 2022 in Falun, Sweden. Focus lies to examine visitors’ subjective experiences judged by their uploaded content on Instagram. A thematic analysis combined with online interviews of users bring light to prominent themes arising from the content; ranging from emotional to spatial experiences of the sport event and the destination of Falun. Moreover, new light is brought upon the previous studied effects of sport event leverages. Results reveal how ‘liminal’ sensations of experiencing the ‘folkfest’ contribute greatly to the overall experience and affect how visitors projects their sense of place on Instagram. This study is to the author’s note being the first one during the last decade seeing these results.